1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus for audibly advertising products to shoppers at the point-of-purchase in a store, and more particularly, to such apparatus having essentially portable components that may be simply and selectively repositioned within desired portions of the store in order to establish spatially separable zones of local advertising where desired or required.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
A variety of prior art systems are known for advertising products to shoppers at the point-of-purchase in a store.
For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,670,798 to Campbell, et al. discloses a shelf-mounted, point-of-purchase advertising system that uses ultrasonic energy to sense the presence of a person in the vicinity of an advertising display, and thereupon produces prerecorded audible messages. While capable of audibly advertising to shoppers in the store, this system suffers, however, from several significant shortcomings and drawbacks. In particular, audible messages from such a system necessarily emanate from the shelf-mounted transmitter and consequently must be of a sufficiently loud level to be audible by a shopper whose presence has been detected. When using several of these systems along a particular shopping aisle, the composite sounds of each system's message necessarily tend to interfere with adjacent advertisers, thereby creating a combination of discordant sounds.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,724 to Vela et al. disclose a shopper communication system which is presently realized as the Video Cart.TM. shoppers communication system commercially available from Videocart, Inc., of Chicago, Ill. The Vela et al. system comprises an automated in-store computer, a network of sensors mounted on the ceiling and racks throughout the store, and a plurality of cart-mounted computers each having a video display screen. The in-store computer transmits a location-triggerable video program to each cart computer which stores the video program for future access and display on its video screen. As the shoppers move their carts through the store, the sensors transmit a signal to each cart computer, thereby accessing a specific portion of the video program, and the visually advertising on the video screen, aisle specials at the point-of-purchase. While the system is capable of visually displaying brief advertising messages at the shelf location of the advertised product, the system has several significant shortcomings and drawbacks. In particular, the requirement of a network of permanently mounted sensors in the ceiling and racks renders the system unnecessarily complex, making installation both time and labor intensive. Also, in such a communication system, each shopping cart requires a computer and means for receiving, storing, and visually displaying the video program. This makes the overall system necessarily complex, equipment intensive, and prone to failure and requiring high levels of maintenance. Furthermore, this system requires the shopper's to continually look at the cart display while walking through the store aisles.
Thus, while the prior art has proposed a variety of apparatus for advertising to shoppers, at the point-of-sale in a store, there has clearly been a great need in the art for apparatus which does not suffer from the above described shortcomings and drawbacks.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide essentially portable apparatus for audibly advertising products to shoppers at the point of sale in a store, in which system components can be selectively repositioned in the store so as to establish spatially-separable advertising (i.e., transmission) zones of variable dimensions were desired or required.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such apparatus in the form of an essentially portable system comprising a plurality of portable, battery-operated local transmitters adapted for selected repositioning within the store, and a cart receiver suitably attached to each shopping cart for receiving infra-red signal transmissions from local transmitters.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a system, in which a beam of infra-red light transmitted from each local transmitter is used to establish a particular spatially defined advertising zone, and that the size and dimension of each such zone can be adjusted for spatial-multiplexing store aisle shopping space into the plurality of spatially separable advertising zones.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a system, in which each cart receiver has a power module that can be simply recharged when a plurality of shopping carts are nested together and electrically connected to suitable power recharging apparatus.
A further object of the present invention is to provide such a system, in which each local transmitter (i) stores its advertiser's message on a end-less loop cassette tape, (ii) uses infra-red light to detect the presence of a shopping cart in its transmission zone and thereupon actuates the transmission of a message bearing optical signal, and (iii) has a rechargeable plug in power module for simply restoring the required operating power levels to each of the local transmitters.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide advertising apparatus in the form of an essentially portable system, comprising one or more elevated or ceiling-mountable remote transmitters, plurality of shelf-mountable local transceivers in data communication with one of the remote transmitters, and one or more cart receivers which can receive audio messages from a remote transmitter, by way of a local transceiver.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system in which each remote transmitter receives optical message signals from a central message console and transmits such message signals to a shopping cart by way of a local transceiver.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system, in which each remote transmitter is detachably positionable on a selected portion of a drop ceiling or otherwise elevated platform, and comprises passive components for receiving a plurality of infra-red signals and focusing these optical signals into optical beams, each of which is directed to a particular local transceiver for reception and retransmission as an optical signal to a shopping cart receiver in its transmission zone.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such a system, in which each local transceiver comprises passive components for receiving an optical beam and producing a retransmitted optical beam in a manner to establish a spatially separable transmission zone in a store aisle that desirably avoids overlapping of adjacent transmission zones.
An even further object of the present invention is to provide such a system in which the rechargeable power supply module of each cart receiver is adapted to establish a parallel electrical connection with a plurality of shopping carts nested together, so that they can be simultaneously charged when not in use.
Another object is to provide all of the above in a system which further includes an alarm means that audibly sounds off when the shopping cart receiver is moved outside a predefined region about a store, and which is capable of sending general announcements to each shopping cart receiver from a remote location.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent hereinafter and in the claims.